Final Fantasy XV vs. Final Fantasy VII Remake

I came across a link leading to a NeoGaf thread that actually wasn't filled with toxic comments. There was a comment that stuck out to me:http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1352588
"FF7 had great legs, as well as re-releases. Just because it didn't open higher than XV doesn't mean that XV will sell what it has lifetime. By all accounts FF7 will remain the best selling entry in the franchise, and that will probably never change."

I don't know if this is true. FFVII has been re-released multiple times over the years on several different platforms. FFXV hasn't gone to PC as of yet, and also the gaming environment is a lot different than what it used to be back in 1997. Hell I remember back then there weren't a lot of games coming out that I would be interested in. That isn't the same story today, but I at least hold myself back from ending up with a giant backlog I'll never cut down. I guess the point of the prior remark is that it's more likely a lot of people won't really stick with a game like they would in the past just due to the number of games coming out today. I'm sure the Remake regardless of how it turns out will increase sales of the original some due to curiosity from both negative and positive reception. Still, I think it would be more fair to compare sales records of the remake (despite being multiple parts) to FFXV if anything since they'll both be on a more even playing field judgement wise imo. Let me know what you think.

Its a monumental achievement that casts a large shadow that is near impossible to surpass.

Both SE and Steven Spielberg have made a lot of great content past both Jaws and FFVII, its hard to replicate a perfect storm.

When FFXV is taken on its own merits its a good game, when compared to the heights of the FF golden age it struggles to be anywhere near the heights that the golden age era FF's have attained.

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While this does make sense, I do want to point out that the goal post has been moved greatly since then. Sure, during the PS1 era I'm sure FF was easily one of the best RPG series around. However, I also have to ask how heavy the competition was back then, because imo it was much less than what's present today. FF today not only in some aspects have to compete with mobile gaming, given how Japan has been going that direction over the past several years, but also has to compete with western RPGs that didn't even exist in the PS1 gen on top of on-going JRPG series. Also a lot of gamers are now older and have had more experience with games which has probably changed their expectations and experience that may have not existed as strongly back then.

@MoBB I fully agree that we should not compare development cycles of NES and PS1 to current day given the amount of steps and increased scope that is involved. I also agree with you that FFXV is being compared to products that aren't even in the same genre. Money is a very important factor in development, but it isn't the sole universal solution. Also depending on the source of where that money comes from, there could be a greater chance of developer vs. funding party conflict over how the project should be. As projects become larger, debugging ends up taking more and more time. Sure, money could allow more people to be hired, but that doesn't always correlate fully to debugging being addressed quicker no matter what.

If there is one aspect of your prior response that I disagree on that would be SE dropping from the graphics race. The first reason is that it's something the company has seemed to take a lot of pride in, and it's one of the series bread and butter aspects besides the music imo. The second for me would be SE would in essence be copping out of the visual race instead of maintaining that bar while improving in other areas. Just my opinion here, but visuals at times can tell a story on its own.

What I meant was to get out of the situation that placed a choke hold on its development, think of it as artificially inflating its graphical fidelity.

If we look at the really high end games on the PS4/Xone we see that they have basically reached the zenith of pure graphical fidelity, I doubt we will see something that makes as big of a jump as SNES -> N64 in terms of graphics imho as we've already reached the peak.

MGS V and FFXV at times looked similar if you remember the base infiltration trailer almost everyone was comparing it to MGSV at that point.

I also meant it in the way that Final Fantasy wasn't synonymous with Graphical fidelity until VII or IX? I believe that its story, and world should be their first priority and the graphical fidelity should take a back seat to those two.

Sorry if I failed to get that across, FF shouldn't be purely about graphical fidelity but rather the holistic realization of the games story and world at the highest level of graphical fidelity achievable.

So not pumping graphical fidelity to a level where content has to be cut because the scope of creating that content at that particular level is has increased the games overall development time and increased the amount of resources and time needed to achieve it.

So a hig balance between narrative, world realization, music and graphics all together is what I'm trying to say

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While we may have indeed reached a peak of visually improvements, there are still a good number of technical feats that could be accomplished. I understand where you're coming from a little bit better now. My apologies for not understanding better the first time. I do agree that a balance should always be the aiming mark when it's all said and done.

I fail to see how the two can be compared when the goal of Final Fantasy XV wasn't to surpass VII. It was to save franchise from being canned. It is all about priorities.

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While the goal wasn't to surpass VII, the game certainly was kept on mind. I doubt Tabata was the only one with such an outlook:http://www.gamersglobal.de/interview/ff7-remake-ist-ein-rivale-von-ff15?page=0,0"We see the remake Final Fantasy 7 as a rival"
*GamersGlobal: Do you see any problems for FF15 through the recently announced Final Fantasy 7 remake, see this as internal competitors?
*Hajime Tabata: Partly, partly. But I see nothing negative in connection with the remake of Final Fantasy 7. Both games are benefiting from Square Enix and they are from each other. I can come in many points not say anything about the remake, or what is happening in the development. It also operates a completely different team from far away from the place where we work. We can not see what they are doing. The announcement of the remake at E3 I experienced from the same perspective as the fans. And it reminded me what a splendid game Final Fantasy. 7 But yes, we look at it as a rival. Nevertheless, we are the FF7 remake against well disposed. It's not something that we "beat" must. But we look at it as a milestone.

Well hopefully the FF7 Remake will have a complete fleshed out story this time where things actually have weight to them, character switching being confirmed is nice, and hopefully the magic system isn't as fucked as XV, I'd rather not have anymore friendly fire grenades on AI party members.

Hopefully the game has decent difficulty levels too, I do love the menu though it's exactly what I wanted for XV.

Can we just acknowledge for a moment that FFVII a game that released in January 31, 1997. About 20 years ago soled 2.3 in its first week and FFXV sold 5 million in 24 hours?

For a game that has only been out for a couple of months to do 6+ million and keep on chugging means that in the span of a year or two it will overtake FFVII.

Its not a matter of if but a matter of when to be honest.

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That isn't how it works. FFVII is very unusual for an FF game insofar as it followed a "long tail" model rather than a launch-heavy model. Much of that had to do with the fact that FFVII became a legit classic of both the genre and of gaming as a whole, leading to many, many sales in both Greatest Hits releases during the PSOne era and Steam/PSN sales once the game was finally re-released.

The expected pattern for FFXV to follow is a much more launch-heavy one, though it does have a few tricks up its sleeve. For one thing, Squenix has been really aggressive with the game's price post-launch, which could boost the post-launch sales higher than they might have been under normal circumstances. For another, the game is very likely to get a worldwide Definitive Edition on current-gen consoles, an upgraded Definitive Edition on PC, and probably even a port of the PC Extreme settings version to next-gen consoles once those come around. A goal of 10 million lifetime sales isn't completely out of the question... but that wouldn't really be the same as what FFVII accomplished.

As for FFVIIR, I think its trajectory will depend heavily on whether people see it as the successor to the FFVII crown moving forward or if it's seen as a remake that doesn't really serve to replace the original. If the former happened, FFVIIR would get the long-tail sales that FFVII currently gets. If the latter happened, it'd probably follow a standard launch-heavy model (though, again, supplemented by re-releases and remasters).

IMHO the remake won't surpass the original because to me at least FFVII was an accident and you can't reproduce an accident, I bought a PS1 and FFVII was bundled with it and that was why I had it and I had no clue about what was going on in the game to be very honest.

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The remake might not surpass OG VII lifetime sells but I do expect the first part to at least outsell OG VII first week sales, this seens resonable.

I question i'd like to ask towards the current users within this topic.

What are the odds of FFXV legitimately meeting the personal 10 million sales goal?

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It varies on several factors Nova
1. The quality of the updates that are to come in the future (particularly DLC episodes to start things off)
2. Definitive version/complete version (if this is a thing, some people will buy this even if they already own the base version *raises hand*)
3. Word of Mouth - This is probably the biggest one as a good number of people will be influenced by this. This is part of the reason why FFVII continues to gain new sales over time because it's constantly talked about in the FF fandom as the best game. On the flip side, FFXIII to this day still gets a lot of disdain and discourages many from even trying the title out due to negative reception on the internet.
4. Support - As long as the game is being supported, it'll still have some means of freshness to it...if that makes any sense.

Depending on how those factors are handed is going to determine rather or not FFXV can hit the mark or not imo.

I question i'd like to ask towards the current users within this topic.

What are the odds of FFXV legitimately meeting the personal 10 million sales goal?

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As it currently stands (PS4 & XB1 only release and over +6M units sold as of this month) I would say its unlikely to reach that millestone. The game would need a PC release and probably ports for the future successors of PS4 & XB1.

I question i'd like to ask towards the current users within this topic.

What are the odds of FFXV legitimately meeting the personal 10 million sales goal?

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Almost impossible to say, really.

FFXIII sold over 600k on Steam, but that game wasn't well-received. All of the other Steam releases are of much older games.

No FF has ever had a worldwide Definitive Edition released. Japan had their "International" versions, but there's no way to use those kinds of figures to determine how the US and EU would respond to an all-in-one box.

There's no way to know whether a PS5/XBTwo remaster is in the cards (though one would presume it would be if the PC version is getting major upgrades).

If you assume 500k copies for random sales this year, 500k for Steam, 500k for the DE, and 500k for next-gen (which I think is probably a low estimate all around?), that'd get you up to 8mil. It'd take another 2mil on top of that to reach 10mil. Is that doable? *shrugs*

@Ikkin Imo, something that will more than likely play in FFXV's favor is the fact that the PC version won't just be a straight port if I base that off of Tabata. It seems he really wants to push the game to a higher level for PC that wasn't doable for console.

If SE do a release of the game that includes all of the season pass content, as well as all the additional story scenes and scenarios to encompass a "complete" experience, then I can see some people buying the game again. So something like The Witcher 3 GOTY edition.

If the PC release will provide a more visually fantastic and "enhanced" gaming experience, then that's another reason for people to double dip.

I'd most likely buy the game again on PC, and the "complete" edition if that ever gets released.

They need $4 million more to go, and if they play their cards right and provide high quality content and updates, then I'd say they can achieve the $10 million goal. The important thing to note here is giving people a reason and incentive to buy the game again.